Part of Series
Part of the Harrowgate Craft Library, alongside titles on dialogue and revision.
From the Publisher
Published by Harrowgate Press in a lay-flat paperback made for writing in.
Print length
428 pages, with 60 pages of exercises and worked answers.
Publish & Reading age
First published January 2023. Written for writers 16 and up.
Why You’ll Love “The Anatomy of Success”
Real manuscripts, marked up
Eleven novels are opened at the scene where they nearly broke, with the author's own notes on the fix.
Exercises with answers
Every drill is followed by a worked example, so you can check your thinking instead of guessing at it.
Honest about the middle
A full third of the book is about the stretch where most drafts die, and what it takes to write through it.
Reader Testimonials
What Readers Are Saying
I finished The Dragon's Embrace on a Tuesday and started it again on the Wednesday. Elena writes the kind of sentence you read twice — once for the story and once because you cannot believe she got away with it.
5 out of 5
Darlene Robertson
Bookseller, Coldharbour Books
I have run a book club for eleven years and I have never seen a novel split a room so happily. We argued about the ending for two hours and everybody was right.
5 out of 5
Arlene McCoy
Book club host
The research never shows, which is how you know how much of it there was. The city in these books feels older than the plot that walks around in it.
5 out of 5
Cameron Williamson
Editor, Marginalia
My teenager took The Enchanted Realm off my nightstand and I did not see it again for a week. That has never happened with anything I recommended out loud.
5 out of 5
Jenny Wilson
Librarian
I came for the mystery and stayed for the two people arguing in the kitchen on page ninety. Nobody writes a small scene better.
5 out of 5
Ronald Richards
Reviewer, The Paper Lantern
I read a lot of thrillers for work. This is the only one this year where I did not guess the turn, and I went back afterwards and found it had been signposted three times.
5 out of 5
Esther Howard
Podcast host, Second Draft
Whispers of the Forgotten is the book I hand to people who tell me they have stopped reading. It has a ninety percent success rate.
5 out of 5
Guy Hawkins
Bookshop owner
I saw Elena read at Northgate last spring. She read the chapter nobody likes, on purpose, and by the end the room liked it.
5 out of 5
Kristin Watson
Festival programmer
The craft book is worth it for the chapter on revision alone. It is the first time anyone has described what cutting actually feels like.
4 out of 5
Brooklyn Simmons
Writing tutor
FAQ
Questions about “The Anatomy of Success”
It assumes you have finished something, even a short story. A writer at page one of their first draft will get more from it after another month of work.
Only briefly, in a closing chapter. The book is about the manuscript, not the market.
Yes. Seventeen instructors have built semester courses from it, and the free syllabus outline is on the author's site.
Eleven contemporary literary and genre novels, all quoted with permission, including two the author edited herself.
The paperback is the workbook. It is printed lay-flat with wide margins for exactly that reason.
Success Story
Adopted as a core text by seventeen writing programs in its first eighteen months.
90k+
Copies in print
4k+
Reader reviews
17+
Courses built on it